Carl Sagan's contributions to management

["Carlos H. Méndez" <carmende@ufm.edu.gt>]

Hello Denizens. Recently I have been reading Carl Sagan's book: "The demond
haunted world". To me this is a fascinating book where the author's intent
is to help us be more scientific about our way of thinking and concluding
about the things we observe.

Dr. Sagan is identifying different fallacies people tend to use to explain
conclusions. Here are some of those fallacies. I'm translating
from the Spanish version, so sorry for any mistakes.

=========FALLACY: selecting the observations.
"My favorite example (Dr. Sagan writes) is a story I heard being told about
the Italian physic
Enrico Fermi, when,....during War World II, became part of the Manhattan
Project for nuclear weapons, and had to deal , face to face, with American
Army Generals:

--That person is a Great General--- he was told
--What is your definition of Great General? -- asked Fermi, a very Fermi
typical question.
-- He is supposed to be a General that has won many consecutive battles.
-- How many? -- asked Fermi again.

After some adding and subtracting the amount was fixed in five.

-- What fraction of the American Generals are great? asked Fermi.

After some adding and subtracting, the amount was fixed in a small percent.

-- Lets supposed, replied Fermi, that there is no such a thing as a Great
General, that all armies are equal and that winning a battle is a matter of
pure probabilities. Then, the probability of winning one a battle is 1 out
of 2, or 1/2; two battles 1/4; three battles 1/8; four battles 1/16 and five
battles 1/32... which is close to 3%. It is logical to expect a small
percent of American Generals to win five consecutive battles, by pure
chance. Now, is there anyone who has ever one ten consecutive battles?

=========FALLACY: small number statistics (cousin of selecting the
observations).

--- It is said that one out of five persons is Chinese.
--- That is not true, I know hundreds of persons and none of them is
Chinese!!!

=========FALLACY: misunderstood statistics
President Dwight Eisenhower was astonished and alarmed when he discovered
that half of the Americans had a below average intelligence.


Thanks for reading,

Carlos Méndez
Invenia, S.A.
invenia@guate.net
PBX - (502) 336-9669
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"Siempre quise ser el primero"  Juan Pablo II.
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"I always wanted to be the first" John Paul II.